Nature in the Year of Fire and Plague (continued)

 

I've started late, so I'm playing catch-up. But new things happen every day. Maybe I can do a little of each  at the same time.

 

What I am mainly doing now is trying to give the reader the background, and especially the cast of characters. I've said a word or two  about the bobcats, who are our favorites, and I will come back to them, probably several times. But this morning when I got up and looked out the window to have my first chance to see what seems to be going on in the back yard, as always the Gambel's Quail were also just getting up, appearing magically out of their nighttime hiding places. We have dozens and some of them go over to the quail block we have set up for them and get their first snack of the day, while the rest earnestly set off in couples or followed by lines of youngsters to head for whatever place they will be foraging. A lesser number of Desert Cottontails will also be setting out. If it is the right season they will go off in mad chases, then abruptly face off tensely, and one will charge the other, which will leap straight up in the air so that the charger will run underneath it, all in the name of love. There is actually is a technical name for it. They are "cavorting."

 

But this morning one of our "big" animals appeared, a family party of coyotes, two smallish ones, probably female and yearling, and then a large burly male. They usually come in twos or threes and we like to see their light springy steps, and in winter their heavy tails hanging straight down like wolves, not turning up like dogs. The quail can easily fly into a tree, and ignore the coyotes. The rabbits have vanished from sight, so the coyotes continued on into our next neighbor's land.